Digital camera modules are currently being incorporated into a variety of host devices. Such host devices include cellular telephones, personal data assistants (PDAs), computers, and so forth. Consumer demand for digital camera modules in host devices continues to grow.
Host device manufacturers prefer digital camera modules to be small, so that they can be incorporated into the host device without increasing its overall size. Further, there is an increasing demand for such cameras to have higher-performance characteristics. One such characteristic possessed by many higher-performance cameras (e.g., standalone digital still cameras) is the ability to vary the focal length of the camera to increase and decrease the magnification of the image. This ability, typically accomplished with a zoom lens, is known as optical zooming. “Zoom” is commonly understood as a capability to provide different magnifications of the same scene and/or object by changing the focal length of an optical system, with a higher level of zoom associated with greater magnification and a lower level of zoom associated with lower magnification. Optical zooming is typically accomplished by mechanically moving lens elements relative to each other. Such zoom lenses are typically more expensive, larger and less reliable than fixed focal length lenses. An alternative approach for approximating the zoom effect is achieved with what is known as digital zooming. With digital zooming, instead of varying the focal length of the lens, a processor in the camera crops the image and interpolates between the pixels of the captured image to create a magnified but lower-resolution image.
Attempts to use multi-aperture imaging systems to approximate the effect of a zoom lens are known. A multi-aperture imaging system (implemented for example in a digital camera) includes a plurality of optical sub-systems (also referred to as “sub-cameras”). Each sub-camera includes one or more lenses and/or other optical elements which define an aperture such that received electro-magnetic radiation is imaged by the optical sub-system and a resulting image is directed towards a two-dimensional (2D) pixelated image sensor region. The image sensor (or simply “sensor”) region is configured to receive the image and to generate a set of image data based on the image. The digital camera may be aligned to receive electromagnetic radiation associated with scenery having a given set of one or more objects. The set of image data may be represented as digital image data, as well known in the art. Hereinafter in this description, “image” “image data” and “digital image data” may be used interchangeably. Also, “object” and “scene” may be used interchangeably.
Multi-aperture imaging systems and associated methods are described for example in US Patent Publications No. 2008/0030592, 2010/0277619 and 2011/0064327. In US 2008/0030592, two sensors are operated simultaneously to capture an image imaged through an associated lens. A sensor and its associated lens form a lens/sensor combination. The two lenses have different focal lengths. Thus, even though each lens/sensor combination is aligned to look in the same direction, each captures an image of the same subject but with two different fields of view (FOVs). One sensor is commonly called “Wide” and the other “Tele”. Each sensor provides a separate image, referred to respectively as “Wide” (or “W”) and “Tele” (or “T”) images. A W-image reflects a wider FOV and has lower resolution than the T-image. The images are then stitched (fused) together to form a composite (“fused”) image. In the composite image, the central portion is formed by the relatively higher-resolution image taken by the lens/sensor combination with the longer focal length, and the peripheral portion is formed by a peripheral portion of the relatively lower-resolution image taken by the lens/sensor combination with the shorter focal length. The user selects a desired amount of zoom and the composite image is used to interpolate values from the chosen amount of zoom to provide a respective zoom image. The solution offered by US 2008/0030592 requires, in video mode, very large processing resources in addition to high frame rate requirements and high power consumption (since both cameras are fully operational).
US 2010/0277619 teaches a camera with two lens/sensor combinations, the two lenses having different focal lengths, so that the image from one of the combinations has a FOV approximately 2-3 times greater than the image from the other combination. As a user of the camera requests a given amount of zoom, the zoomed image is provided from the lens/sensor combination having a FOV that is next larger than the requested FOV. Thus, if the requested FOV is less than the smaller FOV combination, the zoomed image is created from the image captured by that combination, using cropping and interpolation if necessary. Similarly, if the requested FOV is greater than the smaller FOV combination, the zoomed image is created from the image captured by the other combination, using cropping and interpolation if necessary. The solution offered by US 2010/0277619 leads to parallax artifacts when moving to the Tele camera in video mode.
In both US 2008/0030592 and US 2010/0277619, different focal length systems cause Tele and Wide matching FOVs to be exposed at different times using CMOS sensors. This degrades the overall image quality. Different optical F numbers (“F#”) cause image intensity differences. Working with such a dual sensor system requires double bandwidth support, i.e. additional wires from the sensors to the following HW component. Neither US 2008/0030592 nor US 2010/0277619 deal with registration errors. Neither US 2008/000592 nor US 2010/0277619 refer to partial fusion, i.e. fusion of less than all the pixels of both Wide and Tele images in still mode.
US 2011/0064327 discloses multi-aperture imaging systems and methods for image data fusion that include providing first and second sets of image data corresponding to an imaged first and second scene respectively. The scenes overlap at least partially in an overlap region, defining a first collection of overlap image data as part of the first set of image data, and a second collection of overlap image data as part of the second set of image data. The second collection of overlap image data is represented as a plurality of image data sub-cameras such that each of the sub-cameras is based on at least one characteristic of the second collection, and each sub-camera spans the overlap region. A fused set of image data is produced by an image processor, by modifying the first collection of overlap image data based on at least a selected one of, but less than all of, the image data sub-cameras. The systems and methods disclosed in this application deal solely with fused still images.
None of the known art references provide a thin (e.g. fitting in a cell-phone) dual-aperture zoom digital camera with fixed focal length lenses, the camera configured to operate in both still mode and video mode to provide still and video images, wherein the camera configuration uses partial or full fusion to provide a fused image in still mode and does not use any fusion to provide a continuous, smooth zoom in video mode.
Therefore there is a need for, and it would be advantageous to have thin digital cameras with optical zoom operating in both video and still mode that do not suffer from commonly encountered problems and disadvantages, some of which are listed above.